


waxing moon

by casualbird



Series: epilogue [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Body Positivity, Body Worship, Fluff and Smut, Gentle Sex, Insecurity, M/M, Oral Sex, Post-Canon, Premature Ejaculation, Weight Gain, and that's coming from ME, the sappiest thing i have ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:40:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27484384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casualbird/pseuds/casualbird
Summary: “Now, my heart--won’t you tell me what’s the matter?” Libra’s voice lays as fine, as light as a muslin blanket.“Mmn,” mumbles Lon’qu, on the heel of a long, trailing sigh. “It has been… some time now, since the war.”“I’ve gotten soft,” he says.
Relationships: Lon'qu/Riviera | Libra
Series: epilogue [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1368562
Comments: 12
Kudos: 54





	waxing moon

Libra’s fingers curl stiff in the fringe of his prayer shawl, drawing it up like a bird’s feathers against the chill. It grows cold, sometimes, in the mountains of Chon’sin, and he suspects he’ll never truly become accustomed to it.

Still, there is an order to his dusk routine, some inexorable ritual, a holloway from which his wagon wouldn’t stray. Wash the dirty dishes, tuck the children in, spend a time knitting or mending or reading in soft-gold candlelight. Pray to the Goddess, and then the warmth of his quilt-laden bed, his husband beside him.

It is their children for whom he always prays first, and then Lon’qu, and then their friends across the world. For ragged-edged families, for those who hurt, those who wait day in and out for a gentle hand that never seems to come.

Surely, a little cold would not dissuade Libra from this. Besides--it is over, in its turn, and he murmurs his _amen,_ stands with effort on wearing knees.

The ache in his joints, the cold--they were the due of the devout, and he cannot truly disdain them, though he cannnot disdain the opportunity to bundle up in bed, either. He humspeacably to himself on his way upstairs, balancing his eagerness with the need to step light on creaking floorboards.

He stops, though, short and silent in the doorway. His husband sits rigid on the edge of the bed, head bowed, bare spine a crumbling column.

It isn’t new, of course, for Lon’qu to brood like an aged hound, but it still twinges in Libra every time.

“Dear?” he ventures, stepping closer. “Lon’qu, aren’t you cold?”

His response comes as little more than a breath, a vestigial little sigh. Libra kneels, again, beside him--but does not touch, though his hands shake with the desire to lay over Lon’qu’s where they wring, fingers tangled.

“I--I suppose I am,” says Lon’qu finally, at a rasp. Libra only smiles, draped the shawl over his love’s naked shoulders. Resists the impulse to smooth it over, tuck it in, to soothe him--just provids.

The crinkling of Lon’qu’s crow’s feet is just as good as a smile back. He thanks him, in his way.

“Now, my heart--won’t you tell me what’s the matter?” Libra’s voice lays as fine, as light as a muslin blanket.

“Mmn,” mumbles Lon’qu, on the heel of a long, trailing sigh. “It has been… some time now, since the war.”

Nigh on five years, Libra thinks, and he thanks the Goddess for it every day. Knows that Lon’qu does as well, even if peacetime is... more an adjustment, for him.

Lon’qu’s voice comes in fits and starts--he gestures, instead, to himself. The palm of one hand sweeps the air over his chest, his abdomen, coming to rest uneasy at his hip.

“I’ve gotten soft,” he says.

Libra reaches for that hand and, when it is granted him, kisses his husband’s white-scarred knuckles. “So we have,” he says, as if to say _what of it?_

A pause. “I am--a member of the town watch.”

A distinguished member, Libra’s proud heart wants to add. Still, he is silent. There will be time for doting later.

“I… cannot slow.” His words come like shards of a broken bowl, lifted one by one from stumbling lips. “If there was to be an incident--I could only--”

He sighs, again. Libra squeezes his hand, twines their fingers tighter.

“I must be able to protect the things I… care for,” he says, finally, all in an inelegant rush.

Libra only smiles, like their morning cups of tea--gentle, bittersweet. Encouraging. He kisses the knob of Lon’qu’s wrist, murmurs _I understand._

For a moment, it is all that needs to be said. Lon’qu slackens, a little, reaches his free hand for Libra’s hair. On his nod, short fingers weave into it, stroking with the same slow, hushed awe of their first touches.

“Thank you,” he mumbles, “Libra.”

Libra’s lips curl, slow, against rough skin. “When did I say I was finished?” It earns an exhale that, in the right light, might be laughter.

“I’ve much to say, love--would you hear me out?”

Lon’qu’s nod is tentative, but present. Undeniable.

“Well, for one thing, dear heart, I know that you are strong. I have seen the way you train still, the exercises you lead the guard in doing. I see you haul water and chop wood, I see you running with our children on your back, Lon’qu, you have not grown weak.”

Breath shakes, in the both of them.

“Perhaps… perhaps you are not as nimble as once you were,” he says, in the same even tone with which he delivers any truth. “And your body has changed, but darling, I have sparred you and I have held you. I know fully well the muscle, the _power_ that you’ve gained.”

Lon’qu’s hand twitches, shifting to lay callused skin against Libra’s own soft nape.

“Surely, your strength is different now, but I--Lon’qu, my husband, I trust in it all the same.”

A silence stretches out before them, untouched by discomfort. They breathe. Those fingers shake against the back of Libra’s neck.

Libra is halfway through demurring, through asking _does that make sense?_ when Lon’qu speaks up, rasps “thank you.”

A smile, another kiss to the thin skin at the back of Lon’qu’s hand. “I hope you can believe it,” Libra says.

Lon’qu nods, lips pursed, and says he’ll try.

For another short while, they sit like that. Libra lists, lays his head with permission on the bare plane of Lon’qu’s thigh. It’s a familar resting place, soft and cool beneath coarse hair, and just the feel of Libra’s cheek against it is a comfort. Lon’qu strokes him absently, worry lines slackening on his face.

“I’d like to add,” Libra says after a moment, half-muffled in Lon’qu’s skin, “that I find you very beautiful.”

There’s a little noise from Lon’qu’s throat, like the shatter of thin-blown glass. His hand stops, shakes.

“You are--” he grinds, pinking in the cheeks and down his neck, “...to me, as well.”

But Libra only lifts his head, shakes it slow with an easy smile. “You’ll not distract me so easily,” he says. “I--I do adore you, and I...”

He sighs--nearly six years, they’ve been wed, but asking will never be as easy as he’d hope.

“I’d like it, Lon’qu, if I could show you.”

Lon’qu jerks, coloring even deeper. The light is low, and their bodies close, but Libra swears the flush is spreading ‘cross his chest.

Still, he nods, lips fumbling his assent. Libra smiles, rises again on aching knees to kiss him, to cup the unshaven angle of his jaw. Lon’qu’s lips are swollen, already bitten, and Libra loves them with his own, gently.

“I love the sight of you like this,” he says, after Lon’qu winces into his mouth, draws away moon-eyed and panting. “In our bed, yes, but--we no longer eat rations, my love. I love that we break bread three times a day, that there is always _enough.”_ His hands stroke slow under the shawl’s fringe, soothing the undersides of Lon’qu’s biceps, where he’s softened.

Lon’qu has no recourse but to shudder, to wax hard and clutch his husband’s waist.

“You look so healthy, now, beloved, now that we don’t march ourselves ragged, now that we don’t fear. Now that we only walk as far as the marketplace, that we look after our children and this village rather than the whole world.” His hands fall further, to the place where he can no longer count Lon’qu’s ribs, his thickset waist, the sturdy crests of his hips.

“And I love the way you _feel,”_ he tells him, at a whisper. “When you hold me, you are so--so soft, so strong… Lon’qu, you make me feel...”

A little sigh, a little smile.

“Safe,” he breathes, and Lon’qu’s gasp falls out broken. He calls him by his name, shaking, and Libra knows how deeply he must want.

For the third time in a quarter-hour, Libra goes gently to his knees.

There is a little shuffling, then--Lon’qu spreads his thighs, Libra shifts between them. Stuttering hands rest at the base of his neck, a stuttering voice in his ears.

“Is this what you want?” he asks, his words nearly muffled for how he nuzzles the curve of Lon’qu’s abdomen, the crescent of his breast. “It is what I want to give you.”

The plea comes half-formed from Lon’qu’s lips, but Libra knows it, takes it for what it is. Kisses his hip, the top of his thigh, the tender skin at the inside. He laughs, kindly and small, when Lon’qu’s cock twitches up against his cheek.

“Yes,” he sighs, and takes it gentle between his lips, letting it ease inside with the slow bow of his head, the quiver of Lon’qu’s hips. _There you go,_ he thinks, _that’s right,_ and if he can’t say it outright, the soft stroking of his palms carries the message all the same.

Lon’qu cries out for him, muted as he curls, buries his face in Libra’s cornsilk hair. Libra only shuts his eyes in bliss, lashes fluttering against the little rolls of Lon’qu’s belly.

He laves over him, slow and careful the way that he’s practiced, the way that Lon’qu always wails for. And he does, crumbling, fingers clutching at the back of Libra’s robe until he breaks, sobbing and spilling as quickly as ever he does, when they’re like this.

Libra swallows softly, holds him there in his mouth as he softens, comes unwound. When he pulls away, Lon’qu lists sidewise against the bed, marshaling ragged breath back into step.

“Libra,” he manages, choked, and his husband simply smiles, takes it for the _thank you,_ the _my beloved_ that it is. “D--d’you want--?”

But Libra only smiles, dabs his mouth with the edge of his sleeve.

“Come to bed, dearheart, and hold me, and we’ll see.”

And he does, and they do--all caught up in quilts, in the warmth and soft strength of each other--but not until Libra can be certain that Lon’qu is beginning to believe all he’s told.

**Author's Note:**

> hello hello! this is a pretty rare pair in a pretty old fandom, so if you're here: thank you so much! i salute you! lon'qu and libra will never leave my heart alone, and i hope i've gotten across at least a little bit of why that is here.
> 
> let me know what you thought of this, if you like, and come hang out with me on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/bird_scribbles) i'm friendly and i've had all my shots!


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